“What about him?”
“He’s dying.”
Kat nodded, stalling, trying to regain her footing. “Of?”
“Pancreatic cancer.”
“How long has he had it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why are you just telling me this now?”
Her voice had more edge than she’d meant. He looked up at her. She gestured her apology.
“I just found out myself,” he said.
“I’ve been trying to visit him.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“He used to let me. But lately . . .”
“I know that too,” Stagger said.
Silence.
“Is he still up at Clinton?” she asked. Clinton was a maximum-security correctional facility in upstate New York near the Canadian border, seemingly the loneliest, coldest place on earth. It was a six-hour drive from New York City. Kat had made that depressing ride too often.
“No. They moved him to Fishkill.”
Good. That was much closer. She could make it there in ninety minutes. “How long does he have?”
“Not long.”
Stagger started to come around the desk, maybe to offer comfort or a hug, but he pulled up short.
“This is good, Kat. He deserves to die. He deserves worse.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Kat . . .”
“I need to speak to him again.”
He nodded slowly. “I thought you’d say that.”
“And?”
“I made the request. Leburne refuses to see you.”
“Too bad,” she said. “I’m a cop. He’s a convicted murderer about to die with a big secret.”
“Kat.”
“What?”
“Even if you could get him to talk now—and come on, we know that won’t happen—he won’t live until trial anyway.”
“We can put him on tape. Deathbed confession.”
Stagger looked skeptical.
“I have to try.”
“He won’t see you.”
“Can I borrow a car from the pool?”
He closed his eyes, said nothing.
“Please, Stagger?”
So much for only calling him captain.
“Your partner will cover for you?”
“Sure,” she lied. “Of course.”
“Doesn’t feel like I have much of a choice anyway,” he said with a sigh of resignation. “Fine, go.”
Chapter 5
Gerard Remington finally saw daylight.
He had no idea how long he had been in the darkness. The sudden burst of light exploded in his eyes like a supernova. His eyes shut. He wanted to shield them too, but his hands were still tied. He tried to blink, his eyes watering with the light.
Someone stood directly above him.
“Don’t move,” a man’s voice said.
Gerard didn’t. He heard a snapping noise and realized that the man was cutting the bindings. For a brief moment, hope filled his chest. Perhaps, Gerard thought, this man has come to rescue me.
“Get up,” the man said now. He had a hint of an accent, maybe something from the Caribbean or South America. “I have a gun. If you make any moves, we kill you and bury you here. Do you understand?”
Gerard’s mouth was so dry, but he still managed to say, “Yes.”
The man climbed out of the . . . box? For the first time, Gerard Remington could now see where he had been kept all these . . . hours? It was somewhere in size between a coffin and a small room, maybe four feet deep and wide, and perhaps eight feet long. When he stood up, Gerard saw that he was surrounded by deep woods. The room was buried in the ground. A hidden bunker of some sort. Maybe something to hide in during a storm, or somewhere to store grain. It was hard to say.
“Get out,” the man said.
Gerard squinted up. The man—no, he was closer to a teen, really—was big and muscular. His accent now seemed to have a little Portuguese in it, maybe Brazilian, but Gerard was no expert. His hair was short, tight curls. He wore torn jeans and a fitted T-shirt that worked almost like a tourniquet on his bloated biceps.
He also had a gun.
Gerard climbed out of the box and into the woods. In the distance, he saw a dog—a chocolate Lab maybe—run up a path. When the man closed the top of the bunker, the bunker vanished from sight. You could see only two large metal rings, a chain, and a padlock—all on the door.
Gerard’s head spun.
“Where am I?”
“You stink,” the young man said. “There’s a hose behind that tree. Wash yourself off, do your business, and put this on.”
The young man handed Gerard a one-piece jumpsuit in camouflage colors.
“I don’t understand any of this,” Gerard said.
The muscled man with the gun moved right up next to him. He started flexing his pecs and triceps. “Do you want me to kick your ass?”
“No.”
“Then do what I say.”
Gerard tried to swallow, but again his throat was too parched. He turned toward the hose. Forget washing off. He needed water. Gerard started to run toward the hose, but his knees buckled, almost knocking him down. He had been in that box too long. He managed to stay upright long enough to reach the hose. He turned the faucet. When the water appeared, he drank greedily. The water tasted like, well, old hose, but he didn’t care.
Gerard waited for the man to bark at him again, but suddenly the man had patience. That bothered Gerard for some reason. He looked around. Where was he? He turned in a circle, hoping to find a clearing or a street or something. But there was nothing. Just woods.
He listened for any noise. Again nothing.
Where was Vanessa? Was she waiting for him at the airport, confused but safe?
Or had she been grabbed too?
Gerard Remington stepped behind the tree and removed his soiled clothes. The man still watched him. Gerard wondered when he had last been naked in front of another man. Physical education class in high school, he assumed. An odd thing to think about at a time like this—modesty.
Where was Vanessa? Was she okay?
He didn’t know, of course. He didn’t know anything. He didn’t know where he was or who this man was or why he was here. Gerard tried to slow himself down, tried to think rationally about his next move. He would have to cooperate and try as best he could to keep his wits about him. Gerard was smart. He reminded himself of that right now. There, good, that made him feel better.
He was smart. He had a woman he loved and a great job and a wonderful future ahead of him. This brute had a gun, yes, but he was no match for Gerard Remington’s intellect.
The man finally spoke. “Hurry.”
Gerard hosed himself off. “Do you have a towel?” he asked.
“No.”
Still wet, Gerard slipped into the jumpsuit. He was shivering now. The combination of fear, exhaustion, confusion, and deprivation was taking its toll.
“Do you see that path?”
The man with the swollen muscles pointed toward the same opening Gerard had seen the dog run up.
“Yes.”
“Follow it until the end. If you step off of it, I will shoot you.”
Gerard did not bother to question the order. He started down the narrow path. Running away did not seem to be an option. Even if the man didn’t shoot him, where would he go? He could hide in the woods maybe. Hope to outrun him. But he had no idea which direction to head. He had no idea if he would be running toward a road or deeper into the wilderness.
It was, it seemed, a fool’s plan.
Plus, if these people wanted to kill him—he assumed that there was more than one since the brute had said “we”—they would have done so by now. So stay smart. Stay observant. Stay alive.
Find Vanessa.
Gerard knew his stride was approximately 81 centimeters. He counted the steps. When he reached two hundred steps, which added up to 162 meters, he saw a break in the path. There was a clearing not far away. Twelve steps later, Gerard was out of the thick woods. Up ahead, there was a white farmhouse. Gerard studied it from afar, noticing that the upstairs window shades were dark green. He looked for electrical wires leading toward the house. There were none.